Karen Leland - Public Speaking In An Instant: 60 Ways to Stand Up and Be Heard

Public Speaking In An Instant

60 Ways to Stand Up and Be Heard

How to Prepare to Be Spontaneous

Enliven Your Talks With Stories and Examples

Make Your Audience Part of the Presentation

Keith Bailey and Karen Leland

Copyright 2009 by Karen Leland and Keith Bailey

All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher, The Career Press.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Leland, Karen.

Public speaking in an instant : 60 ways to stand up and be heard
/by Karen Leland and Keith Bailey.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-60163-018-6

1. Public speaking. I. Bailey, Keith, 1945 II. Title.

PN4129.15L46 2009

808.51--dc22

2008035820

To the power of words and their ability to
teach, heal, and inspire.

Keith Bailey

To Dewitt Jones for not only being a great speaker, but
always taking the time to help me be a better one.

Karen Leland

Many thanks to our agent, Matthew Carnicelli, and the folks at Career Press for their support of the In An Instant series. Much gratitude to our clients and all the trainers and speakers we have had the privilege of working with and learning from. Lastly, to our spouses, Deborah and Jonour biggest cheerleaders.

Public speaking, though often considered the domain of the professional lecturer, is more a part of our lives than we realize. Its the supervisor who leads a meeting for a group of four and the book author who gives a keynote speech at a conference of 4,000 people. Its the salesperson who stands in front of clients to promote a product and the trainer who conducts seminars for her colleagues. Its the best friend who toasts the groom at his wedding and the daughter who speaks of her mothers passing at the funeral.

Regardless of the form it takes, good public speaking is all about connecting with your audienceknowing what your message is and getting it across in a way that educates, entertains, motivates, or movessometimes all at once.

Over the past 25 years we have had the privilege of leading thousands of training seminars for companies around the world, giving hundreds of keynote speeches to conference attendees and training scores of people to be better presenters, trainers, and public speakers.

This book is a compilation of everything we have learned from our own experience, our clients, and the other professional speakers we have watched and admired over the years. We sincerely hope it helps you to make your next speech, presentation, training, or meeting more of what you want it to be.

At first glance your audience may appear to be a mass of undistinguished faces in a crowd, but delivering your message to individualsand then crafting your presentation accordinglyis one of the secrets to good public speaking. An important first step in delivering a knock your socks off speech is to research who exactly you will be speaking to and what it is they need or want from you. You can do this by setting up a pre-event conference call with the meeting coordinator. The eight key questions to ask are:

1. What is the ratio of male to female attendees?

Consider how the makeup of the audience might alter your presentation. For example: If you are giving a talk on Career Advancement in Information Technology and your audience is three-quarters female, you might want to spend extra time discussing the specific challenges facing women in the industry.

2. What geographic regions are represented?

If your audience members hail from a wide geographic smorgasbord (say, from Iowa to India), you may need to tweak certain aspects of your presentation. For example: American colloquialisms and idioms (catch some rays, go bananas, goofed up) will be understood by anyone from the States, but could leave foreigners scratching their heads.

3. What percentage of the group is made up of front-line staff, mid-level managers, and/or executives or owners?

Addressing a group of bank presidents can be very different than talking to a group of bank tellers. Depending on the level of individuals you will be speaking to you should:

Choose the specific concerns to be addressed.

Customize the examples you use.

Tailor the solutions you recommend.

4. How long have most of these people been with the company or in the industry?

Attendees who have been around for a long timehave seen, heard, and done it allwill feel talked down to if the information you present is too run of the mill. For example: If you are conducting a break-out session for a group of veteran salespeople with 20-plus years experience in the industry, discussing how to overcome the fear of asking for the sale might be a bit below their current skill level. The more experienced the group, the harder you have to work at coming up with leading-edge information or a new, innovative way of presenting core information. On the other hand, if your audience is made up of mostly newbies, a good review of the fundamentals wont hurt.

5. What is the age range of the group and what is the average age?

If you talk about Mister Rogers and how he changed the face of childrens television to a group of Baby Boomers, they will nod in recognition and probably smile remembering the good times they had watching him. The Generation X folks in the audience may vaguely know who you are talking about and say, Ive heard of him. But use this example with an assembly of Generation Y workers and blank stares will more than likely be their response. The examples you use, the experts you quote, and the humor you pepper your presentation with should all be age appropriate to your audience.

6. What are the biggest concerns facing the group right now?

Dig a little deeper to find out what current circumstances are impacting the group. For example: If you are speaking about Technologys Impact on Inventory Control, your pre-conference call might reveal a big concern about job security and rampant downsizing within the industry. Integrating this aspect of technologys impact into your speech will help build rapport and credibility with your audience.